


Imperfect Timing

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 07:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4214076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock knows that he loves Molly and he knows he needs to tell her. He just wants the moment to be perfect. But his timing never seems to be <i>quite</i> right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperfect Timing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vonPeeps (BoodleBrown)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=vonPeeps+%28BoodleBrown%29).



> Despite the summary I swear, this is fluffy! Anyway, I got a prompt from **vonPeeps (BoodleBrown)** on AO3 for fluffy Sherlolly fic ( _Sherlock has been trying to come up with a suitable way to tell Molly about his feelings for her. He wants it to be just right, but he just can't catch a break..._ ) and felt today would be a good time to answer it since cheering up is needed. Hope it helps! Also, the pick-up lines come from [this post](http://s23.postimg.org/bmg8gg8gr/Sherlock_Pickup_Lines.jpg) I saw on Facebook which I think was originally from Tumblr (if you know who created it, let me know so I can give credit).

“The game is…something, but you are _everything._ ” He shook his head as he paced outside the path lab. “No, that’s too sappy.” He thought for another moment. “Without you, I get so bored that I start shooting walls. No, that won’t do.” He sighed. These phrases were so unbelievably _corny_. How on earth had John thought they’d be a good icebreaker? This whole thing shouldn’t be hard. It was just telling her how he felt. It had been a very long time in coming, years in fact, but he knew now. He knew just how important she was to him, just how much he needed her in his life. Just how much he _wanted_ her in his life. There had been so much that they had gone through, so many trials and tribulations, but now was a good time, an appropriate time, for him to tell Molly just what she meant to him. Finally he settled on something that didn’t grate at his ears, and he entered the path lab, finding her hard at work. “Molly?” he asked, coming up behind her.

“Hmm?” she asked. She didn’t look up from the sample she was examining under the microscope. 

"Us meeting couldn't be coincidence, the universe is _rarely_ so lazy," he said, slightly irritated that she was more focused on the sample than him. But he should have expected it. She was at work, after all, and part of what he liked about her was that she was a consummate professional. 

“Well, I suppose it wasn’t, but that’s because we chose these career paths we went down,” she said, taking out the slide and then inserting another one. “Though it could be coincidence that you were working that specific case and I was the specific pathologist performing the autopsy. _Though_ , we would have meant eventually.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. 

“Well, what did you—” she began, but then stopped. She pulled away, a wide smile on her face. “Take a look at this.”

Sherlock moved over towards the microscope and looked at the new sample, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “Oh, that’s brilliant.”

“So I solved the case?” she asked when he pulled away.

He nodded. “You did indeed. I apologize that I might be late for our date tonight, but—”

“I understand.” She paused, then leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “When you solve the case you can try out some more cheesy pick-up lines on me.”

“How did you—?” he asked. 

“Mary said John gave them to you as an icebreaker. I figured I’d hear them at some point even though we’re already dating.” She gave him a warm smile. “She said her personal favorite was ‘It's a good thing I find breathing boring, because you _take my breath away._ ’”

“I thought that one was too abominable,” he said, shaking his head. “I was hoping to dazzle you with ‘I would never tell _you_ to get out of my head, when I'm busy.’”

“Well, if that’s actually true, then I feel quite honoured. And whatever reason you have for needing them, I can’t wait to find out,” she said. Then she turned him around and pushed him away towards the door. “Now hurry up and solve the case so we can salvage some bit of our date, all right?”

He nodded and then turned, leaving the lab. It struck him as he made it to the door that he could have told her then, but he’d chosen not to. He wondered why. It would have been perfectly all right to make the admission that he was in love with her, madly and utterly and deeply in love with her, right then, but he was holding back. It just hadn’t felt perfect. When it felt perfect, then he would tell her.

**\---**

“Sorry Mary ruined the bit with the lines,” John said as they left Scotland Yard hours later. “She couldn’t resist. She just thought it was too adorable to keep to herself.”

“It’s not my fault I have no idea how to tell Molly how I really feel,” Sherlock said. “Sentiment is still new to me. Actually being in a relationship where I’m not faking things is still strange.”

“You’re doing a magnificent job, though. Never seen Molly this happy before,” he said. “She was happy enough with Tom, I suppose, but now she just _glows_ , you know? You make her quite happy.”

“I do, don’t I?” he said, grinning to himself. “She does the same to me, though. I didn’t actually think it was possible for me to be happy, and yet here I am. I’m quite content.”

“And you’re going to tell her that?” John asked.

He nodded. “If I can just figure out how to start that conversation.

“You don’t have to have a witty one-liner, Sherlock. A simple ‘I have to tell you something’ will work.”

“If it doesn’t make her think I’m about to give her devastating news,” he said, his good mood dimming. “I want the moment to be perfect, John. She deserves it to be perfect.”

“You mean you want her to remember it more than she might remember Tom telling it to her,” John said with a smirk.

Sherlock’s good mood was almost completely gone now. “No. She just deserves the perfect moment,” he said in an irritated tone of voice.

“And what do you think is perfect?” John asked.

“When it’s just us, maybe over a candlelit dinner, soft music in the background?” Sherlock said, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know!”

John looked at him intently. “I think we should work on this a bit more before you give it a go. It’s not like you’re proposing.”

“Fine,” Sherlock said. “I just don’t want to be late for dinner. I can tell her tomorrow.”

“When were you supposed to meet her?” John asked, his eyes wide.

“Seven, but she knows I might be late,” he said with a frown.

“It’s nine twenty-six, Sherlock,” glancing at his watch.

“Damn,” Sherlock said, reaching over to hail a cab. “I have to—”

“Call her on the way,” John said as a cab pulled over. “She’ll be less angry if you call.”

Sherlock nodded as he got in. He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and pulled up Molly’s number before hitting send. She picked up after three rings. “Molly, I know you made reservations, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I gave them to Sally and her boyfriend when you didn’t call by six to let me know anything.”

“I ruined your plans,” he said with a sigh.

“Oh, no, not really,” she said. “I just…I’d thought we could do something…nice. But I’m tired anyway, so maybe it’s for the best.”

“So I shouldn’t come over?” he asked, feeling disappointed.

“Well, you could, but I’ll probably go to sleep soon,” she said. “But…you can stay over, if you want. I mean, I know you haven’t before, but if you want to, you can.”

His spirits lifted. He could spend a night in the clothes he was in. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said.

“All right,” she said brightly. “I’ll make sure I stay awake long enough to let you in.”

“I’ll see you soon, then,” he said.

**\---**

He got to her flat in just under twenty minutes, and when she opened the door he could see she really was quite tired. “Aren’t you sleeping well?” he asked.

“Not really. My neighbor wakes up at four AM to do yoga with the music blasting,” she said. “Ear plugs don’t help.”

“If you find you don’t mind sharing a bed with me, perhaps when you need an escape you can come to Baker Street,” he said.

She smiled before yawning. “I just might.”

“You should get some rest,” he said.

“I’ll probably be out in ten minutes. Fifteen, tops,” she said. She began to head towards her bedroom and he took the moment to admire her in her pyjamas and dressing gown. She had on a white camisole top and bottoms with small lavender flowers on them, covered by a filmy purple dressing gown. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen her in less clothing before; she had dresses she’d worn on dates that showed more skin, but there was an intimacy to this that was thrilling.

He followed her, shedding his coat on the way and draping it over a chair, followed by his suit jacket on the back of the chair at her vanity. He sat down on the edge of her bed and took off his shoes as she took off her dressing gown and hung it on the back of the door. After a moment she got into the bed, curling up under the quilt and sheets, and he moved around to the other side and joined her, putting an arm around her waist and pulling her close. “You’ll be here when I wake up?” she asked.

“If I’m not threatening your neighbor with defenestration at four o’clock in the morning,” he said, his lips near her ear.

She giggled slightly. “No need to throw him out the window, Sherlock. Just shoot his stereo.”

“Done,” he said. He pressed a kiss into her hair and then spoke. “Molly?”

“Hmm?” she said, her voice very quiet.

“I love you,” he said softly. He waited for a response, but he didn’t get one except her burrowing in closer to him. Just as well, he supposed. It probably hadn’t been the perfect time, nothing remotely memorable. He shut his eyes and just as he was sure she was sound asleep, he heard it.

“Love you too, Sherlock.”


End file.
